#prince!connor

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Human shield + prince!connor?

“Get behind me!” he had yelled.

Get behind me, loud and stern and unlike Will’s usual gentle tone with him, startling Connor so badly he nearly fell with the strength of Will’s shove. He’s had guards protect him before, shield him before, but they’re always prepared for the consequences and wearing protective vests and such. They’re not Will. Will, who collapses at Connor’s feet with a yelp, clutching at a spreading stain on his shoulder.

Connor drops down beside him as the shooter is grabbed and restrained. Chaos. Screaming. None of it matters because Will is losing blood quickly and looks so pale beneath his freckles. Connor’s definitely crying as he presses down desperately on the wound.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he sobs. No one’s helping. Someone else in the crowd fires up. A guard grabs Connor by the waist and pulls him away from Will, telling him to breathe. He can’t fight back because the guard is stronger and he’s weak with fear and panic and his heart might actually be stopping in his chest because it really hurts. “Will! Will, get up!”

But Will doesn’t get up. He lays there as Connor’s dragged to safety, and doesn’t come in the moments between Connor losing his line of sight and fainting.

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Prince!AU for scream pls 🍑

Connor’s chest doesn’t hurt so badly when Will is right here, palm laid over his beating heart and undoubtedly able to feel it pulsing erratically. This is it, he thinks morosely. He’s going to die in bed with Will before they ever get to sleep with each other or anything more important, like confess the love that has slowly blossomed between them in spite of everything trying to keep them apart. 

“I took samples from your guard,” Will says. He’s now tracing patterns over Connor’s chest with the soft tips of his fingers. “The one whose heart failed. It was environmental.”

He hums. His heart feels liable to do the same. Maybe he’ll be forced to get the surgery now, even though he doesn’t want any machine keeping him alive, especially given how inaccessible the technology is for everyone else. If Will had his condition, even he wouldn’t be able to afford a pacemaker.

“I don’t think you get it. Connor, he was sick like you, and it killed him. And it’s because there’s something here, doing that to both of you.”

“But not anyone else?”

Will shakes his head and sits up. “It’s gotta be in your chambers, right? Something in here that’s fucking with you. I’m really worried about you.”

If it was going to kill him, it probably would have ages ago. Connor doesn’t bother to shift from his comfortable position in bed and waits for Will to settle, to lay back down with him again and let them sleep.

“You’ve been in here constantly, are you not worried about yourself?”

“It’s different.”

But it’s not. Nonetheless, Will, lies back down with him and tangles his and Connor’s hands to make them feel closer, safer. It’s a security blanket Connor relies on, and he kisses Will’s temple to remind himself that there’s still some time left for him, for them. He’s not dead yet.

“I don’t think it’s in the air,” he says quietly. “I think it’s my meds.”

“Why?”

Connor still carries some of the guilt. Of pushing away his anti-anxiety medication because it makes him nauseous and he didn’t feel like it that day, and his guard emptying the IV into his own arm to de-stress. He feels almost worse that he didn’t stop the nameless man from doing it. But he’s certain that killed him, and he sometimes remembers the scream his guard let out, when it’s late and the lights are off.

Does that make him a monster, that it doesn’t haunt him as severely as memories of Will being hurt or when he was kidnapped by rebels and tortured? He should feel awful. He should hate himself. But he doesn’t, and he needs to tell Will the truth sooner or later, but the fallout... he doesn’t want to know how Will is going to look at him if he finds out what Connor allowed to happen, and how little remorse he feels.

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Kiss me + PRINCE CONNOR

“Okay, you know the drill,” Will says, pushing down gently on Connor’s chest to make him lay on his back. “Let me know if anything hurts.”

He’s as careful as possible, but he still has to apply more pressure than he ever wants to take to Connor’s body as he examines his abdomen. It’s just a precaution- he’s been healing well since he got back to the palace, but Will’s been keeping an extra close eye on him just in case. He’s still got a fairly consistent cough, after all.

“We don’t need to do this,” Connor says with a small laugh, which ends in something like a wheeze. “I’m fine.”

Rolling his eyes, Will moves from the left to the right side of Connor’s stomach. He presses down lightly and, suddenly, Connor shoots up and grabs the back of Will’s neck. Immediately Will’s trying to think of where he was just touching, what’s beneath the skin and how to help, but then he realizes Connor’s smiling, rather than grimacing in pain.

“Connor-”

“Kiss me?”

He should scold him for this. It wasn’t funny. But Connor’s smiling, and his eyes are so bright and his cheeks flushed instead of deathly pale, and Will’s so happy to see him back on his way to healthy. So Will kisses him, steady and chaste, for a long moment before easing him to lay back down.

“You know,” Connor says as Will checks the bruises on his ribs, “that’s the first time you’ve kissed me since we were rescued.”

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Their blood is on your hands + prince au

For all the time Will has spent around Connor, all the times he’s thought he’s seen him at his lowest, he’s never seen him like this. The prince is so angry that his whole face has gone red as his muscles shake and his posture sets. He’s beyond furious, and not for nothing. The streets in the capitol city beyond the palace run red with innocent blood from a massacre worse than anything the nation has seen in their lives.

“I told you what would happen!” he screams, banging his fist against the conference table for emphasis, so loud it makes Will flinch. “I fucking told you! Our people are dying out there, and instead of helping them you shot them! Their blood is on your hands!”

His father is calm in the face of Connor’s rage. “And I told you that it was necessary. They were told what would happen if they continued to make their threats-”

“They weren’t threatening me! They just want what I have, you don’t get it!”

Will should keep his head down. He should shut up. But instead, he stands at Connor’s side and clears his throat. “In spite of nearly thirty ‘violent’ protests, the no-report clinic and the palace hospital haven’t treated any victims, and there haven’t been any deaths. These people don’t want to hurt anyone, your majesty, they want to live. They want health care, social programs- they want help.”

“No one asked your opinion,” the king says icily. He waves a hand and suddenly Will’s arms are in a vice grip, and he’s dragged from the room as Connor continues to argue.

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Take it off + prince au

The words echo in his head. Loud. Aggressive. Irrevocable. He just stares at his father, uncomprehending, and listens to the pounding in his chest like a bass drum mere inches from his ears. His tongue seems to fill up his mouth whenever he considers saying anything.

“Connor. Take it off.”

He reaches up and curls his fingers around the cold metal. Ever since he was a small child, he’s had to bear the weight of gold and precious jewels and the implications of a crown designed for a future ruler. It’s heavier still in his hands as he removes it and holds it outward numbly.

His father takes it away and sets it on a plush cushion to be taken to his sister. She’s going to be a better ruler than him anyways, but he wishes this wasn’t a ceremony. There are cameras watching him, zooming in on his cakey stage makeup to look for a crack in his still face so they can talk about him. They didn’t hear his father’s stern command, thankfully, but his hesitation will keep the press busy for some time.

They mostly ignore him for the rest of this, and he almost welcomes it. If they don’t care about him, maybe people will stop trying to kill him, maybe he’ll be allowed to remove his pacemaker, maybe kissing Will in public will be less of a  scandal. He hopes.

Reporters applaud politely as the crown settles onto his sister’s head, more at home for her than he’s ever felt. Most begin to pack up their gear, no longer interested, as Connor’s given a new crown. Silver, with white sapphires inlaid on the thin band that’s so light he can nearly ignore it. He meets his father’s eyes as it settles. 

“It’s for the best.”

It always is, according to him.

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Please don't cry + prince au

“What...?”

Connor traces a hand over the bump in his chest, thicker than just bandages. His memories of the last few days are hazy, going dark sometime shortly after Will showed up wherever he was being held captive. He remembers pain. He remembers being sick to his stomach. But too much is missing, as he presses his fingertips into the bandages in spite of the dull ache.

“You’re awake.”

His eyes sluggishly find Will’s face, a little hazy but still so beautiful, and familiar. With the hand not on his chest, he reaches for him, and is able to relax when warm fingers take his hand and hold it not quite strong enough.

“Please don’t cry, but your father made a decision while you were out. You were really sick, and we almost lost you...”

“What happened?”

Will’s eyes meet Connor’s hand on his chest. “You’ve got a pace maker in now, to help regulate things. Keep you stable.”

In an instant, Connor sits up and begins to pull at the tape around the bandage. 

“Get it out of me. I don’t want this thing in my chest. Get it out of me, get rid of it-”

“Connor, we can’t-”

“Get it out!” he orders, verging on desperation which he knows doesn’t help his case. “I am your prince, and more importantly, your patient, and I don’t want it in me!”

As much as he says that, however, Connor knows it isn’t so simple.

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[name], there’s nobody there. - rhodestead + prince au 😊

Although Will never used to be a light sleeper, he’s gotten used to Connor waking up in tears beside him, gasping for breath and clutching his chest and close to a full panic attack like the kind he insists he’s left in his childhood a long time ago. Now, he’s used to needing to be up and alert quickly, ready to listen for an offbeat heart and talk down the sheer terror in Connor’s eyes.

Tonight is no different than the last, or the one before that. It’s midway between dead of night and first light of dawn, around the same time as always, that he hears the sobs and bolts upright, quick to wrap his arms around Connor and hold him close, protect him from his justifiable paranoia.

“Go away!” he sobs against Will’s chest, gripping desperately at his shirt. “Please!”

“Connor, sweetheart, there’s no one here. No one but you and me, I promise.”

His words get through somewhat, but still, Connor is scared and shaking and when Will manages to get two fingers against the side of his neck, his pulse is racing, but doesn’t feel off beat. It’s good enough that he won’t split them apart to reach for his stethoscope right now. Instead, he cups the back of Connor’s head and holds him close. They need to be close right now.

“They said they’d come back, they- they-”

Will shakes his head, although Connor can’t see it. “No, they’re not coming back. They can’t hurt you anymore.”

His words don’t seem to cut through, however, and he resigns himself to comforting Connor until long after the sun comes up.

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For rhodestead prince!AU Who makes the first move and how? 🍑

I thought I wrote about it in the tag (although I may have forgotten) but the first noticeable attempt on Connor’s life is after he kisses Will suddenly, which results in Will taking leave. It then leads to Connor failing to take his medication, and consequently, he has a cardiac event which nearly kills him. And then there’s the first known attempt on his life